Tilting the Balance

“If you are not needed for this, will they take you away from us?” Ristin showed his teeth. “You want me and Ullhass to forget how we speak English? Then they still need you. We do not want you to go. You have been good to us since you catch us all this time ago. We think then that you people hurt us, kill us. You showed us different. We want you to stay.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay,” Yeager said. A year before, he’d have found absurd the notion that anything a turret-eyed creature with a hissing accent said could touch him. Touched he was, though, and sometimes he had to remind himself how alien Ristin really was. He went on, “I’ve been a bench warmer before. It’s not the end of the world.”

“It may be.” From sympathetic, Ristin turned serious. “If you humans do build an atomic bomb, it may be. You will use it, and we will use it, and little will be left when all is done.”

“We weren’t the first ones to use them,” Yeager said. “What about Washington and Berlin?”

“Warning shots,” Ristin said. “We could choose to use them in a way that did little harm”-he ignored the choked noise that escaped from Sam’s throat-“because we had them and you did not. If they turn into just another weapon of war, the planet will be badly hurt.”

“But if we don’t use them, the Race is probably going to conquer us,” Yeager said.

Now Ristin made a noise that reminded Sam of a water heater in desperate need of replacement. “This is-how do you say two things that cannot be true at the same time but are anyhow?”

“A paradox?” Sam suggested after some thought; it wasn’t a word he hauled out every day.

“If that is what you say. Paradox,” Ristin repeated. “You may lose the war without these bombs, but you may lose it, too, because of them. Is this a paradox?”

“I guess so.” Yeager gave the Lizard a hard look. “But if you think things are like that, how come you and Ullhass have been so much help to the Met Lab?”

“At first, we did not think you Big Uglies could know enough to make a bomb anyhow, so no harm done,” Ristin said. Sam knew he was worried, because he didn’t often slip and use the Lizard slang name for human beings. He went on, “Soon we found how wrong we were. You know enough and more, and were mostly using us to check the answers you had already. Again, because of this not much harm could come, so we went along.”

“Oh,” Yeager said. “Nice to know we surprised you.”

Ristin’s mouth opened and he wagged his head slightly: he was laughing at himself, “This whole planet has been a surprise, and not a good one. From the first time people started shooting at us with rifles and cannon, we knew everything we had believed about Tosev 3 was wrong.”

Somebody rapped on the door of the office where Yeager and Ristin were talking. “That’ll be Ullhass,” Yeager said.

But when the, door opened, Barbara came through it “You are not Ullhass,” Ristin said in accusing tones. He let his mouth hang open again to show he’d made a joke.

“You know what?” Sam said. “I’m darn glad she isn’t. Hi, hon.” He gave her a hug and a peck of a kiss. “I didn’t think they were going to let you off work till later.”

“One thing about English majors: we do learn how to type,” Barbara said. “As long as we don’t run out of ribbons, I’ll have plenty to do. Or until the baby comes-whichever happens first. They ought to give me a couple of days off for that.”

“They’d better,” Yeager said, and added the emphatic cough.

He laughed at himself. To Ristin, he said, “That’s what I get for hanging around with the likes of you.”

“What, a civilized language?” Ristin said, laughing his kind of laugh once more. He turned civilized into a long hiss.

Despite his accent, he gave as good as he got. Yeager didn’t fire back at him. Instead, he asked Barbara, “Why did they let you go early?”

“I turned green, I guess,” she answered. “I don’t know why they call it morning sickness. It gets me any old time of day it feels like.”

“You look okay now,” he said.

“I got rid of what ailed me,” Barbara said bleakly. “I’m just glad the plumbing works. If it didn’t, somebody-probably me-would have a mess to clean up.”

“You’re supposed to be eating for two, not throwing up what one has,” Sam said.

“If you know a secret way to make lunch stay down, I wish you’d tell me what it is,” Barbara answered, now with a snap in her voice. “Everybody says this is supposed to go away after I get further along. I hope to heaven that’s true.”

Another knock, this one on the frame of the open door. “Here you go, Corporal,” said a kid in dungarees with a pistol holster on his belt. “I’ve brought your pet Lizard back for you.” Ullhass walked in and exchanged sibilant greetings with Ristin. The kid, who except for the pistol looked like a college freshman, nodded to Yeager, gave Barbara a quick once-over and obviously decided she was too old for him, nodded again, and trotted off down the hall.

“I am not a pet I am a male of the Race,” Ullhass said with considerable dignity.